Sexual Harassment: Are Employers Responsible?

There
are two different types of sexual harassment that are generally recognized by
our legal system. The type of sexual harassment which most people think of when
the term comes to mind is called Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment, in
which a person is sexually mistreated in their work place by one or more
co-workers or employers. Hostile
Environment Sexual Harassment includes such situations as use of degrading or
vulgar language, requests for sexual favors or references to one’s sexuality in
an inappropriate context. The
second type of sexual harassment that is legally recognized is Quid Pro Quo
Sexual Harassment, a situation in which the person’s sexuality is leveraged
against them in some way affecting their employment.

DEFINING HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Hostile
Environment Sexual Harassment is the type of sexual harassment that many people
tend to know most about because it has been widely addressed by the media. This type of sexual harassment also
tends to be more out in the open in the work place than does Quid Pro Quo
Sexual Harassment which is another reason that people in the general public are
more aware of it. Hostile
Environment Sexual Harassment is the kind of sexual harassment that happens
when an individual or group in the workplace is overtly vulgar or makes sexual
comments about employees.

There
are many different types of behavior that might be part of Hostile Environment
Sexual Harassment. Such behavior
includes things like using offensive, demeaning or derogatory language in the
workplace, inappropriate touching of co-workers, or making references to one’s
own or one’s co-worker’s sexuality.
Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment can also include more overt acts
such as displaying lewd material in one’s work space or even making lewd
comments and requesting sexual favors.

ARE EMPLOYERS RESPONSIBLE FORHOSTILE
ENVIRONMENT SEXUAL HARASSMENT?

Employers
can be held responsible for Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment if two
conditions occur. One is that the
employer has to have known (or reasonably should have known) about the
harassment taking place. This
means that if the employer witnessed or was told about the behavior, he or she
should have reasonably known about it.
If the company doesn’t have any policies against sexual harassment or if
harassment took place in front of a number of people, the employer should have
known about the potential for this harassment. The other criteria that must be met to hold an employer
accountable for this type of sexual harassment is that the employer has to have
made no reasonable attempts to end the sexual harassment.

EMPLOYERS AND QUID PRO QUO SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Of
course there are some times when the employer is actually the one perpetrating
the sexual harassment. This is
most often the case in Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment which is defined as a
situation in which employment is based upon sexual behavior. For example, when a boss tells an
employee that he or she risks job loss if he or she won’t perform sexual
favors, this is Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment. Other characteristics of this type of sexual harassment
include demotions or lack of opportunity for promotions resulting directly from
threats made about sexual favors or indirectly from beliefs about an employee’s
sexual practices. Similarly, loss
of economic benefits or wages in relation to an employee’s willingness or lack
of willingness to engage in sexual behavior on the job is a type of Quid Pro
Quo Sexual Harassment.

Because
the employer is generally directly involved in the sexual harassment of this
kind, the employer is held responsible for it more easily than in the case of
Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment.
Any supervisory person can be held responsible for Quid Pro Quo Sexual
Harassment, even if the employee
initially agrees to the behavior.

LAWS PREVENTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Although
holding the actual employer responsible for their actions in the case of both
kinds of sexual harassment can sometimes be difficult, there are a number of
laws in place to make sexual harassment illegal. Some of these relate specifically to outright sexual
harassment of the kind described above.
For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes unwanted
sexual harassment and related behavior illegal for employers who have more than
fifteen employees, including all government agencies. Executive Orders 11375
and 11246 of that act, which were created in 1965 by President Johnson, make
sexual discrimination illegal and set the groundwork for affirmative action for
women.

Legislation like
this can also be related to establishing equal rights in the work place and in
education. For example, Title IX
prohibits sex discrimination specifically within educational institutions. Equal pay laws make sure that men and
women are paid equally for the same work with some exceptions. This type of
legislation helps to equalize the workplace which in turn helps to limit
problems of sexual harassment.
This is because when people view each other as equal, they are less
likely to accept mistreatment of themselves and others.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT
IN THE REAL WORLD

But how does this
all play out in the real world?
Let’s take a look at one example.
You are in your workplace when a female co-worker approaches you and
asks your advice about a sexual harassment problem that she is having with her
supervisor. The supervisor
overhead another worker making derogatory comments to her and ever since then,
she believes that the supervisor has been hinting that she will not get a raise
if she doesn’t comply with sexual requests. She wants to know what she should do.

First, you would
want to advise her about the two different kinds of sexual harassment. The derogatory comments by other
co-workers fall under the category of Hostile Environment Sexual
Harassment. Because the supervisor
heard the comments and failed to do something about them, he can be held
responsible. The actual leveraging
of the raise by the supervisor falls under Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment and
the supervisor can be held directly responsible for that as well.

After you have
explained these two types of sexual harassment to your co-worker, you should
inform her of the specific laws mentioned above so that she has all of the
information that she needs to make a case against the supervisor for both kinds
of harassment. You should also
find out if she is part of a union because this can affect certain thing such
as time limitations of her contract and how to handle conflicts with
supervisors generally. No matter
how your co-worker is going to proceed, you should tell her to document
everything that has happened and to even get witnesses if possible so that she
has strong evidence to support her.
This will help stop the sexual harassment problem in the work place, a
problem which affects everyone.

There is no easy
solution to dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. There is a lot of
ambiguity about behavior. People have been accused of sexual harassment when no
such thing has occurred and that, too, can cause damage in the workplace.
However true sexual harassment of either kind described above still does occur
and makes the workplace uncomfortable for many people. Working to make
employers responsible for their role in controlling helps to limit the problem

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